Many people in the tech world today are concerned with artificial intelligence, or AI. The concern comes from the fact that AI will soon be surpassing human intelligence, and at that point we can start thinking about what it means to be a human.
The main problem with AI is that humans are not ready for it, because we don’t know how to handle it. The best way to think about AI is as something that will be greater than us, but not necessarily good for us.
I have been thinking recently about what it means to be a human, and what I have concluded is that our brains are wired for survival rather than logic. There are many examples of this throughout history: the Greeks thought of logic, but it was still based on their emotions; the Romans were very logical but they were also very violent; and so on.
The reason why we need to rethink life after AI is because there will be no such thing as “human” anymore. There will only be machines. We need to rethink how we live our lives and how we treat each other in order to make sure that humanity survives this transition period without destroying itself.
I’ve been working on AI safety for a few years now, and I have a lot to say about it. I think that the coming of Artificial Intelligence is going to be one of the most important events in human history. I think that how we manage the next century will determine the future of our civilization for tens of thousands of years to come. I think that the way we handle this transition will determine whether or not we deserve to call ourselves civilized.
I know that many people find these claims exaggerated – so before I get into them, let me tell you what it was like for me to discover them. They weren’t something I ever believed without question – at first, they were my intellectual enemy.
I started working on AI safety as a result of personal crisis. The project I was working on had failed, and it had failed in a very public way. I had been working on an ambitious technical project that wasn’t panning out – and while it had seemed like a good idea at the time, it was becoming clear that building what I wanted simply wasn’t possible. While everyone around me applauded my efforts and encouraged me to keep going, inside I knew things weren’t going well at all.
At this point, I discovered AI risk – or rather,
Second, consider the possibilities of a world in which artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies create new forms of wealth and abundance. In fact, some futurists believe that we may be on the verge of an “intelligence explosion” in which AI rapidly becomes more powerful than human minds. Already, AI systems are able to defeat world champions at complex games like chess, Go, poker, and Jeopardy! The question is whether this pattern will continue. If it does, then the consequences may be profound.
Third, consider what this means for your own life. I am not arguing that you should give up everything to pursue AI research because it is a sure thing that will make you rich. But what I am saying is this: if you have something you care about deeply enough to go out and get it, then by all means do so! And if not now, when? Perhaps there’s never been more reason to take a risk than right now.
Fourth, consider how many people could benefit from the technology of the future. Imagine if everyone had access to a basic income or could afford medical care from an AI doctor; these are just two examples of how technology could radically improve people’s lives. If you want to see these things happen sooner rather than later
Credit for the term “artificial intelligence” is usually given to John McCarthy, who coined it in 1956 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has gone through several cycles of hype and disillusionment since then. The first AI winter was from 1974 to 1980, when a combination of over-promising and under-delivering led to a backlash against AI research, which received less funding. In the mid-1980s, Japanese government funding led to the second AI summer, which ended with over-spending on ambitious but impractical projects that did not pan out. The third AI winter began in 1993 and lasted until 1997, when fast computers and cheap data caused a resurgence of interest in machine learning.
The current fourth AI summer began around 2010, and has been driven by massive amounts of data and rapid progress in machine learning algorithms. While this recent progress is impressive, it is largely confined to narrow domains such as playing Go or recognizing faces. It has arguably not been as transformative as promised.
It is impossible to know when the next AI winter might come or whether there will be any more AI summers after that. But we do know that technological change happens faster now than ever before. Since we’re going to have new ideas about AI every few years anyway, we might as
I have just gotten back from a conference at the Future of Life Institute on AI, and while there I had to come up with a talk that would be relevant and interesting to the audience. The “interesting” part wasn’t too hard — I’m an AI researcher, so I’m always interested in AI. But my first draft was a bit long, and “relevant” is quite hard to define; what is relevant to me might not be relevant to others.
But I think I have enough of a sense of what most people think is important that I can write something that will interest them too.
To get started, let’s define “AI”. It’s pretty easy: it’s anything related to intelligence that we can program onto a computer. This means machine learning (i.e., ML), deep learning (DL), reinforcement learning (RL), neural networks (NN), genetic algorithms (GA), Markov chains (MC), natural language processing (NLP) and more.
You don’t really need to know any of these things to understand what follows, but it helps — especially if you’re trying to figure out how much time you have left before your job gets replaced by robots!
Can AI change the world?
Artificial Intelligence is the new general purpose technology, but it’s not at all clear that we’ll be ready. **The OpenAI Codex** explores this question and its implications.
[Read more…](https://openai.com/blog/codex/)
What is artificial intelligence? How will it affect our lives?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the study of how we can build computers that are smart. AI researchers are trying to get a computer to act intelligently.
How will this affect our lives? Well, if an AI researcher gets a robot to work, you can expect that person to make lots of money. This person could become rich and powerful like Steve Jobs. However, many people believe that AI will not be good for us. They think that it could cause a lot of problems in society like unemployment or even war!
What do you think? Are robots going to take over the world and make us expendable slaves? Will they protect us from evil humans with their super-strength or will they enslave us all in a Matrix-style dystopia where we have no rights whatsoever but still depend on them for survival? Sound off below!!
